Tag Archives: MCGM

Dustbins walking up to you?!! We knew this day would come.

General, , , , , , , , , ,

We remember writing a sarcastic piece last year on our collective inability to walk up to a dustbin and throw garbage in it. An excerpt from the article below:

Bins are not capable of walking up to you
(we are hopeful that with growing technological advancements such a day would come as well :) #IndiansNeedWalkingBins)

But boy!, little did we know that the Mumbai city administration was dead serious about the prospect of having dustbins walk up to you. This is why we say that contrary to popular perception, our administration is not that averse to all these fancy ideas.

Don’t believe it? Then read this..

BMC is planning to introduce Dustbin Robots all over the city. They have already installed one for a pilot study in Dadar.

Dustbin Robot in Mumbai!
Dustbin Robot in Mumbai!

The dustbin can travel 350 meters after being charged for four hours. It boasts of nine sensors and will be able to sense human presence . It can collect 80 kgs of trash in a single run.

Some people (like me ;)) would smirk at the idea and say “uth jaayegi ye ek raat mein hi“. The dustbin apparently has a three tier security system. f the dustbin is moved of the assigned area, it will shut down and an alarm will intimate authorities about its removal from the said zone. It doesn’t end there though as once the dustbin shuts down, text messages will be sent automatically to three emergency cellphones, informing them of its location. Whoaa!!

Now, of course, it doesn’t look as fancy as this Italian one called Dustbot below, but for Indian conditions it’s definitely a great start! What say you?

DustCart Robot in Italy, photo courtesy: alternativeconsumer.com
DustCart Robot in Italy, photo courtesy: alternativeconsumer.com

Till the time this robot comes to your city, do report all garbage related issues on www.ChangeBhai.in!

@BMC, tab tak puraani dustbins hi khaali kardo bhai. Check hundreds of issues similar to this latest one we received on ChangeBhai, Issue#A0563, “Garbage bin outside society gate”.

They are doing their ‘Bin’ …Are you doing yours!

Civic gyaan, , , ,

We have mentioned in our earlier posts how our entire team takes out a couple of days in a month and moves around their city speaking to people on the roads. Psst…The footage will make for some ‘enlightening’ YouTube videos (which we are in the process of making, by the way. Watch this space for that.)

The theme of this piece is inspired from the conversations we have had with people about the issue of ‘Garbage Bins’ in Mumbai; South Mumbai to be precise.

While most of the people said that there are no garbage bins in their city at all, some said they are not enough while a few said there are a lot of bins, newly installed albeit.

After getting varying response from the people of the same city, we decided to chuck everything else and check it ourselves. So, we went about town doing guess what… ‘BIN SPOTTING’ (Besides the point, but when my mother called me to ask where I was and I told her what exactly we were doing, I could hear a disappointing sigh from the other end with a faint ‘Is this why you did Engineering and an MBA’ followed by a click..Hota hai!)

We could see a lot of freshly installed bins which were nowhere close to the tattered bins we are used to seeing.

Cool stuff, municipal people! You did surprise us with these fancy, separate Dry and Wet bins (btw, our counterparts in other smaller cities could spot them as well…they are all over the place…like Hollywood would say… “Run..the bins are taking over” #BadJoke) Would be great if the authorities can run recurring campaigns to raise awareness on what type of kachra to throw in which coloured bin. And the colour coding, we suggest, should be universal across the country.

Trash bins in Mumbai
Newly installed trash bins in South Mumbai.

 So we come to today’s question:

They are doing their ‘Bin’ ..oops bit … but, are you doing yours!

Some key points to remember when you want to throw garbage :

1. Bins are not capable of walking up to you
(we are hopeful that with growing technological advancements such a day would come as well :) #IndiansNeedWalkingBins)

 2. Just like we hunt for the nearest ATMs, STD-PCOs whenever we need one, we can do the same for bins as well. Always, always remember:

The next bin is not too far away

3. And if you think there are not enough bins –

Why not report it at www.ChangeBhai.in!

We will get them installed for you, if there are none close by. What say you? Yes, no, maybe?